"You said the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres. We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us."-Rev. Al

"Mr. President, the reason we are fighting so hard, the reason we took Florida so seriously, is our right to vote wasn't gained because of our age. Our vote was soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner, soaked in the blood of four little girls in Birmingham. This vote is sacred to us. This vote can't be bargained away. This vote can't be given away."-Rev. Al

"[T]his is the great danger America faces -- that we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual; each seeking to satisfy private wants. If that happens, who then will speak for America? Who then will speak for the common good?"-Barbara Jordan, 1976 DNC

"Hope -- Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is Godís greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead."-Sen. Obama

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little."-FDR

"I am one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do."-Helen Keller

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."-Heb. 11:1

And of course, JRE..."Like all of us, I have learned a lot of lessons in my life. Two of the most important are that, first, there will always be heartache and struggle; we can't make it go away. But the second is that people of good and strong will can make a difference. One is a sad lesson, and the other is inspiring.

"We are Americans and we choose to be inspired. We choose hope over despair, possibilities over problems, optimism over cynicism. We choose to do what's right even when those around us say, "You can't do that," we choose to be inspired, because we know that we can do better, because this is America where everything is still possible."

AND

"We can also do something about 35 million Americans who live in poverty every day. And here's why we shouldn't just talk about, but do something about the millions of Americans who live in poverty: because it is wrong. And we have a moral responsibility to lift those families up.

"I mean, the very idea that in a country of our wealth and our prosperity, we have children going to bed hungry? We have children who don't have the clothes to keep them warm? We have millions of Americans who work full-time every day to support their families, working for minimum wage, and still live in poverty. It's wrong."

"Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and say, 'Why not?'" Robert F. Kennedy, biting George Bernard Shaw

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." Robert F. Kennedy

"The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country." Robert F. Kennedy

"Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream"Martin Luther King quoting the book of Amos

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice Everywhere"Martin Luther King

"I have a dream"--the entire textMartin Luther King

"Why We Can't Wait"--the entire textMartin Luther King

"If we think we have ours and don't owe any time or money or effort to help those left behind, then we are a part of the problem rather than the solution to the fraying social fabric that threatens all Americans." Marian Wright Edelman

"If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time." Marian Wright Edelman

"Never work just for money or for power. They won't save your soul or help you sleep at night." Marian Wright Edelman

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do."Eleanor Roosevelt

"Be the change you want to see in the world."Gandhi

"None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody - a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns - bent down and helped us pick up our boots." Thurgood Marshall

"Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds." Thurgood Marshall

*Sigh* I do miss the words of Justice Marshall so. The second-to-last one was wonderful, and I can't remember, but was that last one from Stanley v. GA? Personally, I think one of my favorite quotes from him was his response to a question about the reasons for his retirement. I think it went something like: "Why? I'm old! I'm old, and I'm falling apart!"